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28 Sqn Whirlwind: A highly detailed, shake and bake kit


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I'm becoming more amazed by your skills and patience with every update.  My tired eyes can't notice any assymetry in the nose, it looks terrific from here. Love how you just cracked on with the UC legs after a slight mishap. That would have seen me reaching for the rum bottle. 

 

Looking forward to the next episode of Hendie v greeblies. No spoilers but I think Hendie wins. 😀

 

Richie

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Well, that was a mighty fine update with a bit of everything, how can we not be entertained. I think all things considered you are right to move on with the nose profile, you could do a lot of work for a very small gain that most of us would not notice......I know, I know, you know it's there....😃

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Thanks for the help with the ciggie foil. Just need to find a friend that smokes now. Pft! I Should have done more modelling in my 20s. 🥳 The WW is coming along rather nicely. The nose is looking splendid under a coat of paint and will you look at those legs. 😲 

You have permission to carry on. 
 

Johnny.

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first order of the day, pigeon post

 

On 7/5/2021 at 7:09 PM, Andwil said:

Case of scalene creep?

 

:coat:

 

Marvellous work here, really enjoying watching along.

 

AW

 

You're gonna need a bigger coat.   :D

Thanks AW 

 

On 7/5/2021 at 7:30 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

That triangular rod, I may NEED some. Perhaps a swipe with a rough object might reduce it's height a little?

It looks okay in the pictures though, and a coat of paint should help it blend in anyway.

 

It's not the height that's the issue Pete, it's the width at the base - and that's just too difficult a job to even contemplate

 

On 7/6/2021 at 3:01 AM, giemme said:

Nose looking spot on under the primer coat.

Main legs beautifully rendered.

Greebling suitably greebled, you left us wanting more.

 

Ball in the park, as they say over there :) 

 

:worthy: :worthy:  :worthy:

 

Ciao

 

Primer now de-primed Giorgio, but the greebles are multiplying

 

On 7/6/2021 at 3:29 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Nice legs, shame about the boat race….

 

oh, you are a card Crisp.  Actually, I much prefer the tropical nose fit on the WW as I think it makes it look less Vietnam'ish

 

On 7/6/2021 at 3:55 AM, SafetyDad said:

Brilliant, simply brilliant. 

 

Skills far beyond my expertise - that brass undercarriage is exceptional!

 

SD

 

t'would be exceptional if it stayed together.  Read on SD

 

On 7/6/2021 at 5:16 AM, heloman1 said:

Neat work with the nose,  u/c and strengthening strips. Starting to look like  a Whirlwind.

 

Colin

 

Thanks Colin, appreciated.

 

On 7/6/2021 at 6:07 AM, RichieW said:

I'm becoming more amazed by your skills and patience with every update.  My tired eyes can't notice any assymetry in the nose, it looks terrific from here. Love how you just cracked on with the UC legs after a slight mishap. That would have seen me reaching for the rum bottle. 

 

Looking forward to the next episode of Hendie v greeblies. No spoilers but I think Hendie wins. 😀

 

Richie

 

Hend Vs Greeblies is about 50/50 at the moment.  Slowly but surely they are succumbing to my manly charms :evil_laugh:

 

On 7/6/2021 at 11:59 AM, Head in the clouds. said:

Well, that was a mighty fine update with a bit of everything, how can we not be entertained. I think all things considered you are right to move on with the nose profile, you could do a lot of work for a very small gain that most of us would not notice......I know, I know, you know it's there....😃

 

thanks Hitc. I may revisit it but not anytime soon, and I think the paint will do a fine job of disguising my work anyway.

 

On 7/6/2021 at 12:03 PM, Martian said:

More please!

 

Impatient of Mars 👽

 

Certainly Martian.  Here you go...

 

 

Health-benefits-of-peas-iStock-172437645

 

 

oh.... you said please .  Oops!

 

On 7/6/2021 at 12:31 PM, Max Headroom said:

Loving this. It’ll be a beaut once finished.

 

Trevor

 

thanks Trevor.  It won't win any prizes but I don't think there's too many WW HAR10's in 1/48 kicking about, so I'm happy.

 

On 7/7/2021 at 4:45 PM, The Spadgent said:

Thanks for the help with the ciggie foil. Just need to find a friend that smokes now. Pft! I Should have done more modelling in my 20s. 🥳 The WW is coming along rather nicely. The nose is looking splendid under a coat of paint and will you look at those legs. 😲 

You have permission to carry on. 
 

Johnny.

 

Good idea Johnny, here you go... 

 

44983dae-4e86-4479-a1d9-8e0f9d830898.jpg

 

Oh... you said permission.   Oops!

 

Pigeons fed, watered, and released.  Time to move on to more pressing matters.   BTW, anyone notice Postimage acting up today?  The images I just uploaded about half an hour ago are showing up, but none of my previous images are available.  I trust they will get their act together soon.

As I bid my farewell in last weeks episode I had begun the ancient ritual of greebling. It was so much fun, I decided to carry on and see what greeblies would deign to make an appearance this time around.

This was quite the fun part - as I had removed most of the detail in my sanding/grinding/blasting efforts I had to put some thought as to how to reinstate the many protuberances of the WW. Vents are always fun.  Thankfully I have a simple method of producing said greebles.  I'm a very lazy modeler, and that laziness means I have to put some hard thought into how to produce bits n bobs in an effort to avoid, well... effort.  This is the lazy modelers guide to Not-Vac-forming.  

It's as easy as it gets - Choose something metal that's the general shape of the vent in question - in this instance I had an old piece of piano wire kicking around in the drawer. It was stuck into the gas torch flame and after a few seconds it glowed red.  Next bit was even easier - I just dropped it on the workbench, dropped a scrap of styrene sheet on top and then pressed the styrene around the wire with a pair of tweezers.  In a minute or so I had a bunch of little vent shaped lumps.  Don't try and pull the wire out too soon or the plastic will just deform - 10 seconds wait or so worked for this lot.

 

P7060001.jpg

 

Once I had a selection of vents, I chose the best two, trimmed them back and they ended up adorning the spine of the WW.

 

P7060002.jpg

 

Looking at the tail pylon, it seemed a little bland and needed something to kick it up a notch.  After studying the reference pics, I decided that scribing panel lines were not the answer. Sure there are panel lines on the 1:1, but it's all very smooth, and since I am the master of useless when it comes to scribing panel lines I thought I'd try a different approach - aluminum tape. I figured that even .2mm styrene sheet would be too thick to represent the panels and reinforcement strip, but the al tape is much thinner and I thought it was worth a try. 

I have no idea of this is going to work or not, so stay tuned.  

I may even try adding rivets (pin pricks) to the tape - If I can convince myself I can do it neatly

 

P7060004.jpg

 

Another spar was added behind the cockpit, and I tried to represent the maintenance hatch - originally I tried with the aluminum tape but it was too thick and wouldn't conform enough to the various shape changes required so I went with BMF.  Back in my Lysander build I used BMF to represent rib tape on the tail surfaces and it showed up quite well under paint so if luck is with me, this "hatch" will show up under paint but without looking too intrusive.

 

P7080006.jpg

 

At the bottom of the hatch I glued a length of .2mm wire before I applied the BMF to act as the hinge - seen to better effect in this shot.  I think I may run a knife blade along that top edge of the wire to make a cleaner edge

 

P7080005.jpg

 

Then it was back to venting  :rant:

No, not that type of venting - this type of venting!  The lazy modelers vent system again.  This time I noticed a rather uniquely shaped vent just fwd of the tail boom so I used a piece of brass rod and filed the end round. Then the SIHRSC (aka the Fyle) was used to form an angled flat.... oh, it's much easier if you just look at the picture y'know.

Heat. Drop. Drop. Squeeze. Cut. Trim dah de dah de dah

 

P7090007.jpg

 

Which gave me this sharply tapered vent. (I also drilled a hole in the fuselage before adding the vent)

 

P7090009.jpg

 

More greebles were thrown at the WW, this time in the shape of strengthening panels/brackets made once again from aluminum tape.  I've noticed that different HAR10's appear to have these panels in different geometries. Some appear to be plain rectangular panels while some are this truncated diamond shape.

Have I mentioned how weird this plastic is?  You can still clearly see all the rivet lines and other features such as panels and vents showing up, yet that aluminum tape is burnished down flat on top and you can see that there are no rivets showing through the tape.  It makes it very difficult to know when you have completely removed/flattened the detail

 

P7100010.jpg

 

The mysterious box was hung on the underside during a what should I do next intermission

 

P7100011.jpg

 

Yet more vents.  A scrap of brass was brought into play here and filed to the requisite shape.  For some reason I've never kept any of the previous vent-formers I've made.  This time I'm keeping them all to save myself all this hard work in future

 

P7100012.jpg

 

That former produced the small vent in the center of this pic.  Other greeblies making an appearance here are aluminum tape masquerading as various panels. Plasticard acting as a door stop on the door rail and the lamp mounting base above the door rail. A piece of shaped runner steps in as the nav light base, and a brass donut (from the F2b PE fret?) standing in as a static vent surround

 

P7100013.jpg

 

Port side is very similar though not identical

 

P7100014.jpg

 

At this point I think I have applied all the greeblies aft of the cabin area.  There's still a bunch of greeblies to add in that area, but until I've figured out what to do with the windows and rubbers, I'm not sure if I want to touch this area in case whatever plan I come up with requires sanding and more destroying of plastic.

So I moved to the front end and attacked one of the jobs I was not looking forward to - the exhaust opening.

Lots of measuring three and four times and checking my references until it was time to either do it or pack up for the day - so out came the step drills - after I had drilled a plot hole of course. 

I measured the exhaust diameter to be around 9mm or so based on the drawing.  Thankfully, step drills normally come in sets of three because at 9mm diameter on this particular bit, the smallest diameter would be cutting through the stbd side.  Once I had opened the hole up enough I just switched to one of the other step drills.  One of the things I like about these tools is that there is a good length between each diameter increase - this guides the drill and prevents you from wandering, or making eccentric holes. All turned by hand which makes them very controllable

 

P7100015.jpg

 

Like so.

 

P7100016.jpg

 

Time was getting on and I needed some excitement - all this work had started to get a bit boring, so it was time for a quick dry fit to see where I had got to.

Undercarriage slotted in

 

P7100020.jpg

 

Of course I broke the solder joint while faffing about with the stbd undercarriage leg, though to be honest, I am not sure if I am going to bother to try to repair it. Once the legs are in location, they are very solid so I think I'll just add a dab of cyano gel once it's fitted and leave it at that.  You can't even see the break in this photo, and the joint is going to be behind the mainwheel anyway.  A sloppy approach I know, but sometimes life is just too short.

 

P7100019.jpg

 

The last task for today was to do some more work on the rotor head.  During the week I had turned three bearing housings/grease points on the lathe.  I left a 1mm shaft on each which fitted through the casting and will provide a fixing for the rotor blades when I ever get around to figuring out how to make those.  The three housings were soldered onto the top casting

 

P7100022.jpg

 

This shot provides a better view and will give you an idea of how I intend to mount the blades.  Once I've figured the blades out, I'll be able to trim those three shafts to length

 

P7100021.jpg

 

I also turned a brass swash plate (still got plenty to do on that ) and a vaguely MRGB shaped thingy from aluminum rod (mainly because I was bored and it was very easy to do). As per SOP, it is nigh on impossible to actually see the gearbox on a WW once the rotor head gubbinses are fitted

 

P7100023.jpg

 

Now someone  and sorry I can't remember who, asked if I would ever consider using the kit rotor head. 

 

Ehrrrrrr.... kit effort on the left, and my still-in-process attempt at a rotor head on the right (I did get that right didn't I?)

 

P7100024.jpg

 

Does that answer the question ?   :D

 

I can't be too hard on the kit though - remember, this was tooled back in the early 50's, before CNC was common, and when expectations of modeling kits was completely different.  This kit was probably the envy of most kids back in the day.  It very likely stood up well for a few decades.

 

Dinner time now.  Next episode... ehrrr.... not quite sure yet

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is coming along very nicely. 

I think that your method of producing vents with plasticard and hot wire is a stroke of genius and I'll borrow it, if you don't mind, for any of my future builds that may require venting. 

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'Twas a braw update, Hendie.

Silver plastic is the answer (I think) to your query as to why the rivets disappear under the tape). It seems to keep a visual memory.

Keep the updates coming, thick and fast.

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Holy greeblies! That is a clever and sure to be much copied way of venting. In fact it's a clever and sure to be much copied way of adding all the surface details. Fantastic update, I enjoyed that. 

 

Richie

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Smashing update Alan.

 

The Hendie Vent Prodution Method, or HVPM of course, is surely bound to catch on? It is simplistic but so superbly effective. And the aluminium tape panels look very convincing. I've recently used same tape for seat belts/harness on a 1/72 glider, and recall thinking how effective it was, and that there must be other uses ........ and now bingo! Last but by no means least, that brass swash plate will set off that whole rotor head very well indeed.

 

Oh and I did find the exhaust hole scene, a tad nerve wracking, but of course it all ended wonderfully!

 

She's looking more and more like a WW HAR10 at every step.

 

A real pleasure to watch.

 

Terry

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Excellent work - original ideas executed well. 

Like others here I think your method for producing vents is wonderful, and I will cheerfully swipe your approach.

Great thread - not too far now from the end product?

 

SD

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13 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

'Twas a braw update, Hendie.

Silver plastic is the answer (I think) to your query as to why the rivets disappear under the tape). It seems to keep a visual memory.

Keep the updates coming, thick and fast.

Yes, it seems to form a "Skin" as it cools, but cut it or sand it and it becomes a darker grey colour as the surface is removed. It was more noticeable back in the 70s when more kits used silver plastic. Many of my childhood NMF builds were unpainted.

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Wot he said in Italy, sublime brass work with a little Aluminium thrown in for good measure.

 

I also think your method of 'venting' is bang on the money, it just proves the adage 'KISS'

 

That plastic, it really does play tricks with your eyes, must be hellish to work with let alone look at from Lincolnshire.

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On 10/07/2021 at 23:06, hendie said:

This time I noticed a

This almost has to be your catchphrase by now Alan - the number of times I've seen you start a sentence with those words, followed by photography of some astoundingly skilful and creative micro-structure building.

 

I salute your poise as always sir.

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Alan, you really are doing the Whirly thin justice. All those scabbed on parts are adding to an interesting airframe, as the Whirlwind was. I like the way you have effortlessly produced the intake/vents, magical. I'm glad the very small fuel vent above the fus, strake have survived. You are pushing my interest to either an RN Has Mk7 or HAR Mk9.

I can't get hold of step drills, so I use a rat tail file but rotate it anti-clockwise in the hole until I reach the desired diameter. Anti clockwise rotation means the file doesn't but but cuts material away.

I may have mentioned this before on BM. In 1966, off Borneo, we brought aboard Bulwark, some crab Whirlwind cabs that has been serving in the Borneo jungle for some time, for transport back to Singapore. After landing on they were to be stowed below, which necessitated folding of the main rotorblades. Well, the taper pins were solidly corroded into the blade roots! I was at the cabin door applying chain lashings to secure the cabs to the deck. My oppo up top was up top with a hacksaw cutting through the main rotorblades. The chief crab screamed, 'what are you doing to my aircraft?' Our Chief Mechanician, said, if we can't fold the blades, we can't stow them below, it's this or we push them over the side...

 

Colin

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let's get the pigeon post dealt with first

 

 

On 7/10/2021 at 8:22 PM, cngaero said:

This is coming along very nicely. 

I think that your method of producing vents with plasticard and hot wire is a stroke of genius and I'll borrow it, if you don't mind, for any of my future builds that may require venting. 

 

I probably borrowed it from somewhere else so feel free

 

On 7/11/2021 at 1:33 AM, Pete in Lincs said:

'Twas a braw update, Hendie.

Silver plastic is the answer (I think) to your query as to why the rivets disappear under the tape). It seems to keep a visual memory.

Keep the updates coming, thick and fast.

 

it's almost as if the colorant is migrating to the surface - very strange

 

On 7/11/2021 at 2:17 AM, RichieW said:

Holy greeblies! That is a clever and sure to be much copied way of venting. In fact it's a clever and sure to be much copied way of adding all the surface details. Fantastic update, I enjoyed that. 

 

Richie

 

you're welcome Wichie

 

On 7/11/2021 at 2:55 AM, Biggles87 said:

Brilliantly simple idea for making the vents, much less dangerous to the fingers than slicing plastic tube.

You should copyright it.

 

John

 

anyone know a lawyer round these here parts?

 

On 7/11/2021 at 3:41 AM, Terry1954 said:

Smashing update Alan.

 

The Hendie Vent Prodution Method, or HVPM of course, is surely bound to catch on? It is simplistic but so superbly effective. And the aluminium tape panels look very convincing. I've recently used same tape for seat belts/harness on a 1/72 glider, and recall thinking how effective it was, and that there must be other uses ........ and now bingo! Last but by no means least, that brass swash plate will set off that whole rotor head very well indeed.

 

Oh and I did find the exhaust hole scene, a tad nerve wracking, but of course it all ended wonderfully!

 

She's looking more and more like a WW HAR10 at every step.

 

A real pleasure to watch.

 

Terry

 

don't worry Terry - the nerve wracking exhaust hole episode is not yet over.  I've no idea yet how to make the exhaust, particularly the curved section

 

On 7/11/2021 at 4:43 AM, Fritag said:

 

And so educational it’s almost a public service broadcast :D

 

:rofl2:

 

On 7/11/2021 at 5:07 AM, SafetyDad said:

Excellent work - original ideas executed well. 

Like others here I think your method for producing vents is wonderful, and I will cheerfully swipe your approach.

Great thread - not too far now from the end product?

 

SD

 

which end SD ?   I think I'm still closer to the front end than the back end

 

On 7/11/2021 at 12:56 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Brilliant begreebling.  Will the Hendiehead eventually be fitted with a lifting eyebolt thingy / “Jesus nut” (as seen in the styrene number)?

 

but of course Crisp

 

On 7/11/2021 at 2:41 PM, John_W said:

Yes, it seems to form a "Skin" as it cools, but cut it or sand it and it becomes a darker grey colour as the surface is removed. It was more noticeable back in the 70s when more kits used silver plastic. Many of my childhood NMF builds were unpainted.

 

I've no idea what they used as a colorant back then but it's definitely migrating to the surface

 

On 7/11/2021 at 6:15 PM, The Spadgent said:

Quality update! Plenty of top notch greeblies being greebled. Especially those vents. 🙌 excelent work. 

 

thanks Johnny

 

On 7/12/2021 at 2:56 AM, giemme said:

Another juicy update, Alan! :worthy:  Very effective greebling and that rotor head is close to sublime :clap: :clap: 

 

Ciao

 

Thanks G!  For sublime, read problematic... 

 

On 7/12/2021 at 12:40 PM, Head in the clouds. said:

Wot he said in Italy, sublime brass work with a little Aluminium thrown in for good measure.

 

I also think your method of 'venting' is bang on the money, it just proves the adage 'KISS'

 

That plastic, it really does play tricks with your eyes, must be hellish to work with let alone look at from Lincolnshire.

 

I just had horrible visions of Gene Simmons licking the plastic

 

On 7/13/2021 at 11:00 AM, TheBaron said:

This almost has to be your catchphrase by now Alan - the number of times I've seen you start a sentence with those words, followed by photography of some astoundingly skilful and creative micro-structure building.

 

I salute your poise as always sir.

 

Living in the US has severely diminished my control of the language Tony 

 

On 7/13/2021 at 11:25 AM, heloman1 said:

Alan, you really are doing the Whirly thin justice. All those scabbed on parts are adding to an interesting airframe, as the Whirlwind was. I like the way you have effortlessly produced the intake/vents, magical. I'm glad the very small fuel vent above the fus, strake have survived. You are pushing my interest to either an RN Has Mk7 or HAR Mk9.

I can't get hold of step drills, so I use a rat tail file but rotate it anti-clockwise in the hole until I reach the desired diameter. Anti clockwise rotation means the file doesn't but but cuts material away.

I may have mentioned this before on BM. In 1966, off Borneo, we brought aboard Bulwark, some crab Whirlwind cabs that has been serving in the Borneo jungle for some time, for transport back to Singapore. After landing on they were to be stowed below, which necessitated folding of the main rotorblades. Well, the taper pins were solidly corroded into the blade roots! I was at the cabin door applying chain lashings to secure the cabs to the deck. My oppo up top was up top with a hacksaw cutting through the main rotorblades. The chief crab screamed, 'what are you doing to my aircraft?' Our Chief Mechanician, said, if we can't fold the blades, we can't stow them below, it's this or we push them over the side...

 

Colin

 

 

Thanks Colin.  Great story too.  I certainly would not fancy having to cut through a rotor blade with a hacksaw.  Chainsaw maybe.

 

Phew, pigeons fed and watered.  Now the important stuff - more greebles.  It's been a hectic few days rounding up groundhogs.  We knew we had a groundhog living in the yard and I had been trying to catch him for nearly two years but the blighter kept stealing all the melon (apparently the go-to groundhog bait) and not getting caught in the trap... until about two months ago!  Oh how I leapt with joy when I saw the trap had been sprung and there was a groundhog in there.  I'm a bit of a sucker when it comes to wildlife so I've been using a humane trap - all the literature states that you should take them at least 5 miles away before you release them, so just to be on the safe side, I take them about 25 miles.  I checked him for a GPS before I released him, and he wasn't carrying, so I figured I was safe.

Falling for the old literature trick again, I read that groundhogs are solitary and a bit territorial, so I figured I'd caught him and we were safe... until a few days ago when I spotted another. 

I shouldn't be surprised really - as SWMBO stated - we're sitting on some real prime groundhog real estate now - Previous owner removed, tunnels already dug, multiple entrance/exits - in move-in condition.  :D

Anyhoos, the trap was set again, and I caught this little sod within 24 hours. Cue another 25 mile drive. Now, being a bit cautious I thought I should set the trap again - just in case, y'know, and lo and behold, I caught another one just before lunchtime today.  Back in the car....   released him, drove back home, set the trap up again (just in case), then went to work for an hour, drove home and what was waiting fr me but yet another bloody groundhog.  Now either Bob had got a direct tunnel from where I released him straight back to my yard, or there's a :angry: colony of the sods living under my shed. Trap has been set again - this is costing me a fortune in gas and cantaloupes  :D

 

But I digress, you're not here for Tales from Hendie's backyard are you?  You lot want greebles.

 

Well, here's an easy one to start with. I turned this anti-collision lamp base on the lathe from brass stock

 

P7110001.jpg

 

Some scrap runner was rescued and repurposed as a base for a couple of aerials, with PE bling  (ignore the aluminum tape for now - I'll deal with that later)

 

P7140017.jpg

 

Then it was time to get serious with the greebling.  This was something I should have dealt with (along with several other somethings) before I closed up the fuselage - the fuel filler cap.

Easy I thought - I'll just use the old step drills.  A simple plan I thought , but the gods had other ideas.  Right where the fuel filler cap is located was adjacent to the earlier rhinoplasty, and I had placed a number of support blocks in that area. Unfortunately, the fuel filler location was half over one of the blocks so when I started to drill, the block forced the drill to wander.  I carried on the best I could to clean up the hole and got it looking decent, if not completely circular.

Then I had a brainwave.  Have lathe, will greeble - so I made this out of focus top hat, where the rim of the hat would sit on the surface of the plastic and hide and irregularity on the hole diameter, and I could fit the filler cap inside the top hat.  I could say pure genius, but it's really more of a nice save.

 

P7110003.jpg

 

I managed to get the rim of the hat down to around .001" thickness so it's not obtrusive, and I think works really well.

 

P7110004.jpg

 

More greebles were hunted down and captured, this time in the form of SACRU brackets salvaged from some PE fret.  These are for the rear attachment points and each bracket is approximately 2mm wide by 3mm deep.  I found some ss rivets to use as fixings as I simply do not trust cyano to fix brass to plastic without some mechanical method being employed in addition. 

 

P7120005.jpg

 

A good fight ensued and the rivets nearly won, but not quite.  The rivets enter the fuselage on the curve so are angled up towards the brass tube I have located for the undercarriage so that meant I had to trim each rivet down to approx 2mm in length and then cyano the little ***** in place

 

P7120006.jpg

 

Another greeble hunting expedition resulted in these trophies. All from plasticard which has been micromeshed to remove as much thickness as I could without destroying the detail.  The rectangular thingy on the right was a second attempt. I had made the first version from flat sheet before I found a photo that showed the cover as being curved, so that was made by slicing a small length of tube, then adding the end pieces, then removing one end cos it was too big, and cutting it down. Several times.  Measure once cut thrice as they say.

 

P7120007.jpg

 

The fuselage lower step was one of the hardest greebles to manufacture. The top surface angles quite sharply off the fuselage, then folds back under itself to meet with the fuselage again.

My original tries included cutting small rectangular sections of plasticard, but it never looked right.  Eventually I settled on using sections of 1/71 Wessex rotor blade, trailing edge to trailing edge and that looks like it's working.  The white sticky-outy bit just beyond the step is some form of bracket which is still to be trimmed to shape.

 

P7130009.jpg

 

Now lets get back to that aluminum tape that photo-bombed one of my previous shots.  The tropical fit HAr10 has a distinctive (at least I think so) band around the nose, immediately aft of the tropical filter. 

My first thought was to use a 2mm wide strip of the tape but it soon became obvious that was not going to work as I tried to smooth the tape down around the curves.  Like myself, just too many wrinkles.

 

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After a little while, common sense kicked in and I took the wrap it in masking tape and trace out the line option, which appeared much more logical.

 

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Well that was fine for getting the edge right at the nose joint, but how could I get the parallel line 2mm back from that?  The obvious answer would be to use some dividers set at 2mm and just follow the first edge. It shames me to admit that I do not own a set of dividers capable of such a task.  I do have one set but they are really cheap and nasty and the tips don't line up.  Therefore I had to resort to some skullduggery involving some square rod, round rod, and a pencil.

I had some 2mm square tube, so I glued a round rod perpendicular to the square while having a piece of aluminum tape placed under the square rod. This meant that the round rod protruded past the square rod just enough for me to use it as a guide around the edge of the aluminum tape.  I think that makes sense?  I then used jig that to follow the inside edge of the tape and penciled in a 2mm offset

 

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Then all I had to do was cut it.

Several times

Before I got one I was happy with.

 

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The 2mm strip was then applied around the nose - instantly regretting the fact that I had not marked a datum point on the nose and tape to allow me to align it properly.  Perseverance saved the day and it was eventually fitted and burnished down with a cotton bud.

 

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It's still not perfect, but I'm not sure I can get any better than this

 

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With the band in place it was time to confront my nemesis - scribing.

Scribing frightens me, it really does.  So many folks here on BM manage a fantastic job every time, but my scribed lines always look like they were done by a 5 year old. Without looking at it.

It was one of those days wasn't it?  I spent ages trying to figure out different methods of how to transfer the dimensions of the panel lines on the nose onto the kit before that 'doh! moment   

Just cut the panel out of the drawings and stick it on the nose.  I think the phrase is not-very-smart-donkey or something along those lines. :banghead:

 

P7140001.jpg

 

But being an inveterate coward I was too afraid to carve into the nose just yet so I tried it out on one of the several proboscides I had cast weeks ago.  Even though this was just a trial run it was still nerve jangling. I think I finally convinced myself I can do it though - I just need to be very very, very, very, very, very careful.

The white bits are trials at replicating the prominent hinge line of the panel - I keep scribing the panel line until it is deep enough for a .4mm diameter rod to sit into, leaving most of it proud of the surface.  It looks like it's going to work, but getting cyano into that small groove neatly, and quick enough before it starts setting up is another job that I'd rather not be doing.  

 

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And now a question for the congregation:  I went to all that trouble to make the 2mm wide "panel" around the nose with aluminum tape, and now I'm not so sure how it's going to look.  Should I just remove it and scribe the panel line instead?

Here's a shot of the 1:1  That panel doesn't seem so obvious in this shot, while in other photos it can, so I really can't make my mind up

 

50359813208_0abec8deaa_b.jpg

 

Thoughts? 

 

 

 

 

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More very clever and effective detailing and workarounds here - absorbing to watch and read.

FWIW, I would leave the foil line as you've applied it - I think it looks to scale (paint will no doubt help to blend it in) and it is there on the 1:1 example.

I wouldn't fancy trying to scribe that line twice around a compound curve keeping the lines parallel :tmi: (sorry Martian - you've just replied as I was typing this)

 

SD

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Another fine update. I should no longer be surprised at the collection of lumps, bumps, knobs, knockers and brackets littering the outer surfaces of helicopters given that you and Crisp have demonstrated and explained them at length……but I still am.

 

As to that 2mm panel circumferencing the nose.  In principle I’m with Martian, in that the photo you posted suggests the panel is not proud of the surrounding surfaces but in practice it would be a real bu**er to scribe accurately to the extent that the aluminium tape may well be a neat, elegant and totally acceptable solution (as well as being a clever idea ;)).

 

Why not spray some primer over the tape to blend it in and see how it looks under paint?  You’ll know then whether you like it/hate it/can live with it.  

Edited by Fritag
typo’s
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